AUSTRALIANS AT WAR

THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Daniels Pipes, writing in National Review Online, reckons that the descendents ofPalestinian refugees who were pushed from their homes and lands in what is now Israel in 1948 are ‘fake refugees’. He comes to this conclusion thus:

The fetid, dark heart of the Arab war on Israel, I have long argued, lies not in disputes over Jerusalem, checkpoints, or “settlements.” Rather, it concerns the so-called Palestine refugees.

So called because of the nearly 5 million official refugees served by UNRWA (short for the “United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East”) only about 1 percent are real refugees who fit the agency’s definition of “people whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.” The other 99 percent are descendants of those refugees, or what I call fake refugees.

While he doesn’t say it in so many words, Pipes’ argument clearly infers that ‘fake refugees’ – as he calls them – have no claim to right of return to their homelands.

However, Pipes has left himself wide open with this argument.

Quite simply, if the descendents of those who became refugees from Palestine only 64 yeas ago have no right of return, then how can Jews, many of who are descendents of converts to Judaism and have never had any connection whatsoever with Palestine, have a claim to right to return? I’m sure they’d be insulted if I called them ‘fake Israelis’. And how can even descendents of real Jews who moved away from Palestine hundreds of years ago have more of a right of return and those descendents of Palestinian refugees from only 64 years ago who don’t seem to have any rights?

Sunday, May 27, 2012

The Westernmainstream media and US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, has been quick to condemn the deaths of children and civilians yesterday in Syria – and quite rightly so. Whoever is responsible for this war crime – regardless of who it is – should be arrested and tried for their crimes.

However, the swift reaction by the Western mainstream media and the US government is in stark contrast to the same crimes committed by Israel when they attacked civilian areas of Beirut and villages elsewhere in Lebanon in 2006, and again when the Israelis indiscriminately bombed civilian areas in the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009. These attacks resulted in the deaths of many children in both Lebanon and the Gaza yet there was no immediate outrage from the Western mainstream media and nor did the then Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, call for an immediate ceasefire – indeed, Rice ignored pleas from most of the world to get the Israelis to stop their crimes. In the case of the Lebanon war, Rice resisted calls of ceasefire until it became clear that Israel were getting nowhere with their war against Hezbollah. And, similarly in the Gaza, Rice also resisted calls to an end to the onslaught until the world-wide call for an end to the killing became overwhelming.

Friday, May 25, 2012

One of neoconservatisms most rabid and delusional warmongering commentators, Clifford May, has written an article in National Review Online today arguing that Iran needs to be dealt with because of what Spanish ex-prime minister José Maria Aznar says he heard from Iranian leader Ali Khamenei back in 2000.

Apparently, Khamenei told Aznar in a ‘private discussion’ that “Israel must be burned to the ground and made to disappear from the face of the Earth”. The rest of what Aznar reckons Khamenei told him can be read in Clifford May’s article and associated links.

Bear in mind, however, that we are talking about the same Aznar who told the Spanish people that Saddam Hussein had WMDs, was in cohorts with Bush, Blair and Australia’s John Howard in pushing for war against Iraq despite the protests of their own peoples, and this the same Aznar who insisted that ETA, the Basque separatist group, was responsible for the March 2004 Madrid bombing. This is the same Aznar that then ordered the destruction of evidence prior to an upcoming election proving that ETA actually had nothing to do with the bombing ETA.

Clifford May also refers to fellow neocon Anthony Cordesman, who May says is a “respected security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies”. According to Cordesman’s latest rambling report:

Iran has pursued every major area of nuclear weapons development, has carried out programs that have already given it every component of a weapon except fissile material, and there is strong evidence that it has carried out programs to integrate a nuclear warhead onto its missiles.

Naturally, Cordesman is unable to provide any hard evidence to support any of his claims and, one should also remember, that this is the same Anthony Cordesman who in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2002 during the run up to the war against Iraq, said that Saddam Hussein had WMDs. This was at a time when it was well known by the intelligence community that Saddam Hussein had already destroyed his WMDs after having been told by Iraqi defector Hussein Kamel (Saddam’s son-in-law who was later executed by Saddam). Hussein Kamel had told the West in secret debriefings what weapons Saddam had and that he had been in charge of destroying them all. The intelligence about what weapons Saddam had was later used in the propaganda leading up to the attack on Iraq, but the fact that they had been destroyed, of course, was never mentioned.

In theory, a deal that would remove the stockpile of weapons grade uranium and halt any more production would hamper Iran’s plans for a bomb. But any agreement that leaves those facilities intact, rather than having them dismantled and which would allow the production of more refined uranium, even if it is supposed to be not useful for a bomb, is the sort of framework the Iranians could use to bypass the restrictions. Moreover, any diplomatic process that can be dragged out for many months before it is put into effect will simply allow Iran more time to get closer to a bomb, and at the end of the process, it could, as it has done with previous Western-brokered deals for uranium shipment, simply opt out of the agreement.

The neocons clearly do not want the talks to succeed. Failure will mean that the use of force will be much more likely – which is exactly what the neoconservatives and the hard-right Zionists of Israel really want.

However, the associated conditions that are likely to accompany such a concession are not likely to be acceptable to Iran and this latest revelation is more than likely just a furphy to float the idea that Israel can be flexible in talks. In reality they will not be. The Israelis want regime change in Iran – as do the US – and an opportunity to attack Hamas and Hezbollah, and war with Iran is the only way that can be achieved.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

There was an interesting piece in Salon last Thursday by Jordan Michael Smith in which he argued that there was a bit of battle going on between right-wing US conservatives and neoconservatives over how the ‘problem’ of the Muslim Brotherhood in the various Arab countries that have undergone or are currently undergoing revolutionary change, should be handled.

According to Smith, right-wing American conservatives would, at the risk of compromising the ideology of ‘democracy’ in the newly ‘liberated’ Arab nations, prefer not to allow the Muslim Brotherhood any opportunity at gaining power in these countries.

The neoconservatives, however, according to Smith, are willing to give the Muslim Brotherhood a chance and see how they scrub if and when they come to form or be a part of the governments of these newly ‘liberated’ nations.

In his argument, Smith lists those who he sees as right-wing conservatives who hold the view that the Muslim Brotherhood should be prevented from gaining power at any cost, and he similarly lists those who are neoconservative who advocate giving the Muslim Brotherhood a go as part of the democratic process.

Where Smith gets it wrong is in who he lists as right-wing conservatives and who he lists as neoconservatives.

As right-wing conservatives Smith lists Andrew McCarthy, a national security columnist with National Review; John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN under George W. Bush; Frank Gaffney, and Michelle Bachmann.

As neoconservatives Smith listed; Jamie Fly of the neocon think tank Foreign Policy Initiative; Robert Kagan, a strategist with the neocon think tank American Enterprise Institute; Dan Senor, a former official in the George W. Bush administration, and Paula Dobriansky, a well-known neocon advisor that also worked in the George W. bush administration.

The problem with Smith’s lists is that, with the possible exception of Michelle Bachmann, all of those listed as right-wing conservatives are actually neoconservatives as well – and even Bachmann has all the ideological characteristics required of being a neocon.

A difference of opinion within neoconservative ranks – especially over matters relating to who to support and not support in Islamic countries – does not create such a wide a rift as to alienate one group from the main neocon core group to the extent that they are no longer ‘neocons’. The fact is neoconservatives long before there was any hint of Arab revolution in the air, have as part of their rhetoric and propaganda supported the notion of ‘democracy’. Paula Dobriansky, for example, was Bush’s strongest advocate of the so-called ‘freedom agenda’. Indeed all those in the ‘democracy’ camp have been noisily advocating ‘democracy’ as part of the rhetoric calling for regime change in Iraq before the invasion, Iran, Syria, and even Saudi Arabia for years. Their motivation hasn’t been so much because they love democracy so much as all these countries were hostile to Israel – which, of course, is where the interests of all those listed really lay.

This difference of opinion within the neoconservative ranks is nothing new. During the Balkans conflict in the 1990’s there was a split in the neoconservative ranks as to how best to deal with the deadly situation there. Some advocated intervention in order to stop the killings of innocent civilians – most of who happened to be Muslims – while others advocated an isolationist arguing that intervention was not ‘in America’s interest’ inasmuch that there could evolve a Muslim-dominated state in Eastern Europe if the anti- Muslim Serbia were bombed into capitulation and intervention would only be supported by some neoconservatives if it were in the cause of ‘democratisation’ – which it wasn’t, it was for humanitarian reasons.

Those that shouted loudest in their rhetoric and propaganda about ‘democracy’ had no choice but to support the notion of the Muslim Brotherhood taking part in the process of ‘democracy’.

Chances are, however, that both the ‘neocons’ and the ‘right-wing conservatives’ will find a unified voice once again if and when the Muslim Brotherhood do come to power and begin to show that their idea of ‘democracy’ is far different from the neocons of the US view of democracy – especially when it comes to the Muslim Brotherhood’s policies relating to Israel.

In January 2006 the Palestinians had an election which the neoconservatives supported – until, that is, the wrong side, Hamas, won.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Having decided that working themselves up into a lather over the supposed Iranian threat to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ has not had the desired effect inasmuch that it has failed to get Obama to attack Iran so that Israel can take over the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and, so they hope, south Lebanon up to the Litani River, the neocons have now decided that a bit of direct fear-mongering might do the trick.

Do they really expect Americans to fall for this utter nonsense? Are the neocons thick or do they just think the American people are? Do they expect the American people to flow out into the streets of America’s East Coast demanding that Obama attack Iran immediately? Are they nuts?

The American people and the rest of the world would be better off pouring out onto the streets demanding that there be no more wars – not for Israel or anyone else!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Henry Sokolski, the executive director of the neoconservative propaganda organisation The Non-Proliferation Policy Education Center, yesterday wrote a piece in the National Review Online titled ‘Preventing a Nuclear Iran’. In it, Sokolski fumbles around with the usual nonsense about how Iran is playing for time to build a bomb, etc., and how Obama should be getting on with doing something positive about preventing Iran from having any nuclear material.

Toward the end of his nonsensical twaddle Sokolski gets down to the nitty-gritty of what this is really all about. He writes:

Finally, the U.S. and its key allies need to get serious about putting the mullahs out to pasture. This means more than merely imposing economic sanctions or making a bombing run (the merits of which are open to debate).

When he says, ‘this means more than… making a bombing run’ Sokolski is referring to the need not just to destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities, but to launch a massive all-out bombing offensive against Iran’s entire military and governmental institutions such that will bring about regime change in Iran.

Sokolski goes on to say that “the U.S. should consider how to work with its friends in the region to limit Iranian influence in Iraq, Gaza, the Gulf, the West Bank, and Lebanon”. Since America only has one friend in the region, Israel, one wouldn’t need to be a brain surgeon to work out that what Sokolski is suggesting is that, while the US is busy with Iran, Israel could take care of Hamas in the Gaza and the West Bank, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The rather fuzzy reference to ‘Iraq’ and ‘the Gulf’ is just a furphy designed not to make the connotations too obvious.

With an extreme right-wing government in Israel now consolidated under Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party together with their neoconservative backers champing at the bit to attack Iran and poised to contest the US Presidency, only President Obama stands in the way of a catastrophic disaster – and nothing is assured even as far as he is concerned.

The article is probably the most blatant piece of racism yet from Bolt who usually attempts to avoid being so obvious about his racism.

Bolt uses an article in the Age newspaper as an opportunity to peddle his hatred. The article tells of a group of Australian students who happen to be black who are complaining of police harassment when they visit the inner city in Melbourne. They have said that many of them are getting fed up with this harassment and, if it continues, there could possibly be a backlash such as there was last August in the UK when Londoners rioted over the death of a black Londoner who was shot to death by the police.

Racism, sponsored deliberately by the likes of Andrew Bolt and his fellow Murdoch so-called ‘journalists’ like the Islamophobic Tim Blair, Piers Akerman et al, is marginalising black youth in Melbourne who, in turn, look to each other for socialising and studying whilst readying themselves for work – if they can get it.

It’s time to end racism in Australia. Bolt’s blatant racism should never be allowed to take hold in Australia.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Leading influential neoconservative writer and warmonger, Charles Krauthammer, has invoked Israel’s success in the 1967 six day war against numerous Arab countries including Egypt, Jordan and Syria, as encouragement enough for Israel to attack Iran over its so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’.

Krauthammer seems to think that a united Israel – at least politically and militarily if not quite universally – puts it in a position to take on Iran by attacking its nuclear facilities. Krauthammer’s argument is that the entire nation is now united due to Netanyahu commanding some 94 seats in the 120 seat Knesset due to the Kadima Party crossing the floor from the opposition to the government all because of a changeover of leadership when Tzipi Livni lost the leadership ballot to Shaul Mofaz.

There was no general election that gave Netanyahu so much power, but then who needs elections when you have politicians and political parties willing and able to change their political stance without getting a mandate from the electorate yet still keep their seat in parliament?

So much for democracy in Israel.

Israel’s modus operandi ever since Zionists first dreamed up the idea of grabbing Palestine as their homeland has always been to provoke their enemies into providing a casus belli so that any attack against their enemies will always seem as though the Israelis are defending themselves. In reality, however, all that is happening is that, while seemingly acting in defence, albeit pre-emptively, they are actually carefully fulfilling a plan designed specifically to expand their territorial holdings meter by meter. The Six-Day War of 1967 was a classic example of just that. It was a war that had its origins in Israel’s desire to have the Golan Heights. Literally, meter by meter, Israeli bulldozers pushed up the slopes of the Golan Heights with settlers close behind cultivating the land as the bulldozers moved forward. When the Syrians fired at the bulldozers to push them back the Israelis claimed they were under attack.

Similarly, the Israelis provoked the Palestinians by arresting and assassinating Palestinian activists in what is now the West Bank. The Palestinians responded with some small scale attacks against the Israelis. The Israelis counter-responded by launching a massive disproportionate attack against the Jordanian village of as-Samu in the West Bank. In doing so, the Israelis managed to get an entire regional war going. Viola! Six-Day War, occupation of the Gaza Strip, West Bank and the Sinai, and the destruction of the Egyptian forces and the rest is history.

Now Krazy Krauthammer thinks the time is right to repeat the performance – only this time against Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.

The world should take these people seriously. The Zionists of Israel are prepared to risk all for their dream of a Greater Israel and the destruction of all their enemies

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who by taking on new allies in his previously fragile coalition government is now back on his warhorse making demands of Iran that he knows Iran will never accede to.

After making a new alliance with the Kadima Party after the Kadima leadership changed hands, Netanyahu is now in a position of political strength and that, coupled with recent polls saying that he would probably romp home in an election, has given him renewed confidence to confront Iranas the next round of talks begin later this month. Netanyahu has made it clear to the so-called P5+1 group negotiating with Iran to halt its nuclear program that he will be demanding that Iran halt all enrichment, transfer all its enriched uranium out of Iran and shut down and dismantle its underground facility at Fordo. The next round of talks with Iran is due to begin 23 May 2012 in Baghdad, Iraq.

Shaul Mofaz, the new Kadima Party leader after ousting Tzipi Livni in a recent leadership poll, had previously held back from the idea of launching an attack against Iran. However, it now seems he has changed his mind and now agrees with Netanyahu that an attack against Iran would be the best course for Israel to take if Iran refuses to halt its nuclear program.

Since both Netanyahu and Mofaz know that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program while insisting that they have, they are now demanding that Iran halt its entire nuclear program thus raising the ante for an attack based on the likelihood of Iran refusing to comply with any such demands.

With his power in Israel now consolidated, Netanyahu will now have much greater confidence to demand Obama support Israel attacking Iran. For reasons I’ve explained before at this blog, it would be completely impossible for Israel to truly unilaterally launch a ‘pre-emptive’ attack against Iran without the full connivance of the US.

The new political picture in Israel puts President Obama in a predicament. Renewed confidences in Netanyahu in Israel will definitely reinvigour the neoconservatives and the Israel lobby in the US to put pressure on Obama to support Netanyahu’s desire to attack Iran. For the sake of public appearance, Obama is likely to resist such calls knowing full well that the American people simply do not want the US to launch yet another war. However, behind the scenes, Obama will be telling the Israelis that, if they launch an attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities, then the US will follow up with massive what they hope will be a regime changing bombing campaign in order to prevent and deter Iran from any retaliatory attacks against Israel. This will then leave Israel free to pre-emptively attack Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank where Hamas elements would likely join forces with the various Fatah groups to defend against Israeli full occupation and military rule in the West Bank.

What should be clearly stressed is that if Israel attacks Iran while Obama is still President, then one may rest assured that such an attack by Israel has been approved and carried out in full connivance with Obama no matter what Obama says about such an attack being carried out without his prior knowledge.

The bottom line today is: Netanyahu’s new-found political position in Israel, coupled with the up-coming talks in Baghdad and the Presidential elections in the US makes for a real game-changer as far as the Final Confrontation with Iran is concerned.

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

White ultra right-wing racists in Australia and neoconservatives in America have both adopted a propaganda line which seeks to vilify people who identify as having native heritage. The racists of Australia and the neocons of America do this by claiming that some people who identify as having native heritage but who have lost much or all of the physical features associated with the native people of Australia or America respectively are using their racial identity for purely pecuniary reasons. However, while both propaganda memes are racially based, the reasons why Australian natives are abused in this way and the reasons why American natives appear to be abused similarly are quite different from each other.

In Australia, the ultra-racist Murdoch journalist, Andrew Bolt, was recently found guilty of racial vilification in an Australian Federal Court. Judge Mordy Bromberg found Bolt guilty of vilification by virtue of Bolt’s claim that the Aboriginal people he was referring to were not really Aboriginal and only claimed to be Aboriginal in order to gain certain financial benefits. Judge Bromberg found for the plaintiffs based on the fact that the plaintiffs, all with Aboriginal heritage, had, despite their lack of Aboriginal features, identified as being Aboriginal and had always been accepted as Aboriginal by Aboriginal people for all of their lives and long before they had any knowledge of awards or grants being available to Aboriginal people. Judge Bromberg found that Bolt had failed to support his claim that those Aboriginal people concerned had claimed Aboriginality solely for the purpose of gaining a pecuniary advantage and that, in accusing them of fraud, Bolt had racially vilified them. For Bolt the intent was to vilify Aborigines that were fair skinned and had lost the Aboriginal features of their ancestors. The accusation that they had defrauded the Australian taxpayer by claiming Aboriginality was merely an excuse that provided Bolt with yet another opportunity to push his racist propaganda in his online column at Melbourne’s Murdoch-owned Herald-Sun newspaper. Judge Bromberg saw through Bolt’s deception and found for the plaintiffs.

In America, the neoconservatives are currently pushing a similar line about racial identity against a candidate for the US Senate, Elizabeth Warren. Needless to say, Professor Warren is a Democrat and she will be running against the Republican incumbent, Scott Brown in the upcoming elections.

As seems to be the norm in American politics these days, especially during election seasons, both sides tend to dig up as much ‘dirt’ as possible about their adversary and sling it at each other in the hope that some might stick thus giving the other some kind of advantage. Usually, the kind of ‘dirt’ dug up tends to be about the honesty and integrity of the other and thus goes to credibility.

While the accusations made by Andrew Bolt in Australia are the same as the accusations made by the Republicans and their neoconservative supporters in the US and which are as despicable as each other, the motives for Bolt’s accusations against the Australian Aboriginals are completely different from the neocon’s accusations against Elizabeth Warren. For Bolt the motivation was quite simply to racially vilify Aboriginal people generally, while in the US the neocons were simply attempting to defame a political adversary for political reasons though, in the process, they have also managed to vilify a person of native heritage.

Bolt is complaining that he is being denied his freedom of speech by being ordered by Judge Bromberg not to vilify in future. He points to the same accusations being levelled freely against Elizabeth Warren in the US as an example how the right to freedom of speech should be applied in Australia. But this, again, is just a propaganda ploy Bolt is using. Judge Bromberg has not deprived Bolt his freedom of speech as he claims, but rather Bromberg has merely found Bolt guilty of vilification and has warned him against re-offending.

Conversely, in the US, while the neocons accusations are despicable and may be considered bordering on vilification, the accusations were made primarily and deliberately to defame Elizabeth Warren for political reasons. Warren may or may not find that she has reasonable grounds to take her detractors to court but, if she does, it will be to sue them for defaming her whereas the Aboriginal people who took Bolt to court did so because they were vilified by him. His defaming them was as a result of his vilification of them, but in the case of Elizabeth Warren, her vilification is as a result of the neocons defaming her.

The two cases have similarities but have very different motives. Bolt cannot claim they are the same and hold the US up as a shining example of free speech.

Monday, May 07, 2012

In his column today at the Herald-Sun, Andrew Bolt wrote the perfect metaphor that reflects his loathing and contempt for native Australian people.

In his article, Bolt describes how native Australian Possums in his neighbourhood are eating out the tops of the trees that have been planted down his street and have now moved into his garden. Never mind, of course, that it was he that had actually moved into their garden in the first place – a garden that they had occupied for millions of years before Bolt’s family arrived there. But that wouldn’t worry the likes of Bolt who now looks upon all of Australia’s natives, human or animal, that impinge into what he now thinks is his world, as ‘an army of giant rats’.

It’s his metaphor for describing what he feels about those that are different from him. His contempt doesn’t stop at native Australian Possums and Australia’s native peoples.

Just because he is Australian-born, he truly believes that he is a ‘native’ himself and that Aboriginal people, therefore, should become as he is – Australian.

The problem is; Bolt is not a ‘native’ as he likes to think he is. Being born here doesn’t make you a ‘native’. He is – like most who call themselves Australian – an introduced species. The word ‘Australia’ itself is a non-native construct that’s barely just a few hundred years old. The natives called their lands by other names – they still do. None of them were ‘Australia’.

(When one sees it like that, then I’m wrong in calling Aboriginal people; ‘native Australians’. I’m even wrong in calling native Possums; ‘Australian’ native Possums. More correctly I should be referring to them as being native to a land we – we who are not native to – call ‘Australia’.)

But, as I said, it doesn’t stop there for Bolt. His new-found nationalistic arrogance about being ‘Australian’ is so powerful that he now resents not just Possums living in his street but any person new to Australia who is not like him. Just as Possums and Aboriginal people are alien to him, so too are Arab, Central Asian and African people, and especially if they are Islamic and dress differently from him and what he perceives as an ‘Australian’ way of dressing.

Recently Bolt was taken to court for vilifying Aboriginal people. He was found guilty. Now Bolt is playing his conviction for all it’s worth in order further push his racist agenda.

Bolt denies that he vilified Aboriginal people claiming that he was only pointing out that some people are claiming to be Aboriginal in order to gain some kind of pecuniary advantage. He supported his accusations by saying that these people were so un-Aboriginal looking that they couldn’t possibly really be Aboriginals and that they, therefore, were frauds. Fortunately, Judge Mordecai Bromberg was able to see right through Bolt’s ploy and saw it for what it really was – blatant lies designed to specifically vilify Aboriginal people. Bromberg then ordered Bolt not to repeat such vilifying lies. Bolt has since responded by claiming he has lost his freedom of speech.

So now, instead of saying exactly what thinks, he uses metaphors as above and links to other racists writings who say what he is unable to. Despite all his denials, Bolt remains an outrageous racist. One day Murdoch will wake up to the fact that Bolt is not doing the image of Australia any good at all and shut him down. Australia will then be a far better place for everyone to live in – native or otherwise.

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

The very rich have always played a part in government but, for most of them, their decision to enter politics was for truly altruistic reasons. They believed that their experience in business could contribute to the well-being of the entire nation and that the nation as a whole would benefit from their management and decision-making skills. There were, of course, some that said that they were entering politics for purely altruistic reasons but either had ulterior motives for doing so in the first place or, alternatively, soon discovered that their position offered opportunities that could be exploited in order to covertly enrich themselves through various devious contrivances while being in politics. Such people, for better or worse, have been involved in politics for eons ever since ‘politics’ was invented.

Today, however, a frightening new trend is developing in Australia. No longer are the mega-rich entering politics in order to help create a better nation - and in recent history the likes of Malcolm Fraser and Malcolm Turnbull might be numbered among those. Today the mega-rich are quite overtly attempting to buy their way into both power and influence for no other purpose than to further enrich themselves and their shareholders.

Yesterday, Queensland businessman Clive Palmer announced his intention to enter Federal politics by running against Labor Federal Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan in Swan’s electorate of Lilley, Queensland. Palmer, whose main business interests are in mining, has made it quite clear that his purpose and intention for entering politics in this way is to fight against the proposed Mineral Resource Rent Tax and carbon tax which would directly affect his personal fortune and his company’s bottom line.

Joining Palmer in the quest for governmental power and influence in order to directly protect their assets and avoid having to pay the proposed taxes is fellow mining magnate Gina Rinehart of Western Australia. While Palmer is attempting to get into Federal parliament in order to get rid of the taxes, Rinehart’s preferred method of influence is to buy up interests in Australia’s media through which she hopes to influence public opinion by using aggressive right-wing media propagandists. In 2010 Rinehart took a 10% holding in Ten Network Holdings and has also latterly acquired a substantial holding in the slightly left of center Fairfax Media.

Already Rinehart’s influence in the Ten Network is paying dividends. The right-wing Murdoch commentator and Rinehart and Palmer supporter, Andrew Bolt, now has his own program at Ten, The Bolt Report, which overtly and frequently pushesboth Palmer’s and Rinehart’s personal agendas with regard to the mining tax and the carbon tax. Bolt also pushes those same agendas at his online column and blog at Melbourne’s Murdoch-owned Herald-Sun.

And, finally, there’s the perennial right-wing media player himself, Rupert Murdoch, who already wields massive conservative media influence throughout Australia and much of the Western world and whose journalists and commentators in Australia are already pushing the new paradigm of governance by the mega-rich in order to further enrich those that hope to eventually govern. Besides Andrew Bolt, Murdoch’s Australian media has a whole gamut of journalists and commentators who seem willing to take up the miners cause. In recent days, Murdoch’s UK newspaper The Sun has even been seconded to help the conservative cause in Australia with headlines that blatantly demonised the Gillard government.

The domination of government and the media by the wealthy for the sole purpose of further enriching those that govern represents a fundamental change in our democratic system that, if successful, does not bode well for the political health of Australia. With the demise of the altruistic motives of the well-heeled and the well-intentioned being replaced by those that openly wield their wealth in order to influence, govern and then profit, Australians face a bleak future – if, that is, the mega-rich are allowed to get their way.

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About Me

is an Aeronautical Engineer, Historian and general carer of what goes on in the world.
Apart from an earlier career in engineering, Lataan also has a First Class Honours BA degree in History and a PhD in International Politics.
All material on this site is available for use without permission but it would be appreciated if the source is acknowledged.